In which Nick Robinson avoids answering the question

The Telegraph features a letter from Nick Robinson replying to criticism from Lord Howard. 

SIR – I’m sorry that Michael Howard is turning off his radio. He will have missed some illuminating and civilised conversations this week on Today – with the head of MI5 and Tony Blair examining the fallout from 9/11; the Archbishop of Canterbury on climate change and the Health Secretary on the crises in the NHS and social care.

The joy of live radio is that it can move us – bringing joy when we hear of Emma Raducanu’s success; tears when we hear the memories of those haunted by 9/11 and, yes, sometimes anger when we shout at the radio at a politician who is being evasive or an interviewer who interrupts too much.

We presenters don’t always get it right but we do our best to balance allowing those we interview to get their message across and holding them to account. 

I hope Lord Howard will be back listening soon and, perhaps, back in the studio too, where he has always robustly answered, rather than ignored, challenging questions.

I had to chuckle at Nick's closing paragraph because he, Nick Robinson, didn't ''robustly answer'' the nub of Lord Howard's criticism of him. Or to put it another way, he, Nick Robinson ''ignored'' the ''challenging'' point at the heart of Michael Howard's piece:

The final straw, for me, was Nick Robinson’s interview with Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine minister, on Tuesday of this week. Tuesday was, of course, the day when the Government announced its proposals for the reform of social care.

But as Mr Robinson well knew, the details had to be announced to Parliament before they could be broadcast. Indeed, had this convention been broken and caused a reprimand from the Speaker, the BBC’s journalists would have been the first, gleefully, to point to the Government’s discomfort.

Yet when Mr Zahawi attempted to explain this and said that he had come on to the programme to discuss the £5.4 billion which had just been announced for the NHS, Mr Robinson said that this was a complete waste of time and threatened to end the interview there and then.

You and I may think that listeners would have been very interested in how this money was going to be spent but not a single question was addressed to that topic. Instead Mr Robinson spent the whole interview berating the minister for not doing what Mr Robinson knew full well he couldn’t do.

So why did Nick Robinson avoid answering that? Was it a little too close to the bone?

John Humphrys isn’t all bad

Who was it that said John Humphrys  is not all bad? I know I read it somewhere recently.

Hmm. I tapped “John Humphrys’ into the search engine over at Biased-BBC to see if Alan had said it, but the first thing that came up was from September 2011 by someone called Sue.  (!)   (It made quite a good read, if I say so myself).

Anyway, I think I recall complaining about his hectoring style, which emerges on days when he’d obviously got out of bed on the wrong side. You know, when he comes across all bullying and irritable, and interrupts people he dislikes, so that they can’t finish important points.

Well, this morning he was the model of a very modern gentleman. He was even-handed and rather patient, although Shami Chakrabarti, shadow Attorney General or whatever her title is these days, might beg to differ.
The case for insisting that parliament is given a vote on the government’s Brexit strategy is pretty weak in my ill-informed opinion, and I think that her claim that the Labour Party doesn’t wish to ‘imperil’ Britain’s chances of getting a good deal while arguing that there should be transparency and that parliament should have the chance to ‘vote’ on tactics does amount to dancing on the head of a pin. 

If I’m quoting Michael Howard a lot, it’s because I think he was right and Shami was wrong, and I also think she knew she was wrong. 

Her faltering protests “It could be included in the bill” was the desperate cry of a drowning shadow Attorney General grasping at straws; one who jolly well knew she was on a sticky wicket (but who was never going to back down).

Not that I would have particularly chosen to trust Theresa May to handle things on my behalf, but negotiating is just like poker, isn’t it? Don’t show your hand. Keep your cards close to your chest. Poker Face. Lady Gaga wrote a song about it. Bluff, counter-bluff, don’t blink first and all that. And, if we’re forced to reveal our hand in the open and transparent fashion that certain MPs think we should (though they will keep dancing on a pin to deny that is what they’re asking for) then all 27 countries need to do the same. 

John Humphrys was a little ratty with Shami, and I kind of sensed his response to Michael Howard was more respectful, (with good reason, if it was) but he did listen to both sides, and put the gist of each of their arguments to the other in a professional manner.

The BBC forbids its staff to make value judgements, but some of them just have judgemental voices. I'm no fan of Mishal Husain, as you might imagine. When she is dealing with the Israel/Palestine conflict or anything related to Islam, the tone of her voice gives away more than she might wish. If she’s taking someone to task on any topic at all, she comes across all schoolmarmish and harsh. 

Not so this morning. She sounded positively syrupy while indulging in a little light banter with a couple of wimmin, discussing shoes. Emma the podiatrist and Emma the designer.

The ‘news of the day’ concerns The Women’s Dress Code and the sexism of being told to keep up appearances in the workplace. In particular, being compelled to wear high heeled shoes, hence the podiatrist. "Wearing very high-healed shoes cripples you," is what the BBC wanted to hear, so that they could be even more indignant at wimmin being forced to wear them.  But the podiatrist was in two minds. It all depends, she said. People with the right architecture (Doric columns are handy) can wear them with impunity. 

Perhaps the designer was there to make darkly meaningful remarks about Donald Trump, whose ‘wimmin' were wearing very high heels at the inauguration. (Does Donald Trump force his womenfolk to wear them in the workplace?) To augment this confusing innuendo, she said the protesting wimmin wore trainers or bovver boots.

Her own high heels are good high heels because they don't force the toes against the sides. I’m not sure what her point was. Was she for or against? No-one knows, especially not her.

Personally I’m in the “Steel toe-caps for receptionists” movement. Surely it’s people like the confused designer who profit most from the fashion victim industry. It’s in their interest to keep wimmin wearing their stuff, even if it’s uncomfortable. They are always telling us to do all sorts of unnatural things to our persons to ‘look good’. You can’t just blame men. 

I don’t think Mishal Husain was listening very attentively to either contributor or she would have called them out for being silly.  John Humphrys would have done a better job.

Emma Supple is a consultant podiatrist in College of Podiatry, Emma Hope is a shoe designer and here is a Doric column.